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An online store in Latvia: where does it all start?
The idea usually arrives quickly: you already have the products, buyers are already asking “can I order this?” in your messages, and it feels like all that’s left is to build the store. Then come the questions that are hard to answer from the outside. How do you take the money? How does the product reach the buyer? How few products is too few, and how many is too many? And what will all of it cost? These aren’t technical details — they are the decisions that determine whether the store runs almost by itself after launch or demands hours of manual work every week.
The number of products is not the most important number
The first question is usually about how many products there are, and it tells you the least. Thirty clothing models, each in four sizes and three colours, is in practice a more complex store than three hundred simple products with no variants. Every size and every colour is a separate unit with its own stock level, weight and image.
What matters even more is the shape your product data is already in. If there’s a tidy spreadsheet or a supplier file, the catalogue can be moved across quickly. If the information is scattered across Instagram posts, chat threads and your own memory, it first has to be gathered in one place. In our e-commerce package the catalogue has no item limit, and importing products from your existing data is our job.
Payments: the technical part is the fast part
Buyers in Latvia are used to two things — bank links and cards. Both have to be connected to a payment service provider, and that’s the part where the time goes somewhere other than the computer. The agreement requires a registered company, an account and documents, and the provider reviews it at their own pace.
So we plan payments as a separate track running alongside development, not as the last step before launch. Simpler options often sit next to them — an invoice for business customers, or payment on delivery. Which of those options your store actually needs depends on who you’re selling to.
Shipping is part of the product price
Most buyers in Latvia choose a parcel locker — it’s cheaper and more convenient than a courier, and shoppers already expect it as a given. A courier and local pickup are usually an addition, not a replacement.
The hard part, though, isn’t the shipping method but the pricing logic. A flat fee, a price by weight, or free shipping above a certain order value — each option has to go into the store as a clear rule. If that logic doesn’t match your real costs, it quietly eats the profit out of every order, and it only becomes visible a month or two later. That’s why we set the shipping and payment logic up together with you instead of guessing.
What the budget is made of
Online store development starts from €1400. That price includes an unlimited product catalogue, payments and shipping, product import from your data and training for managing content. The timeline for an online store is from six weeks — longer than for an ordinary business site precisely because payments, shipping and product data are added on top.
Domain and hosting stay separate, and they usually come to a few euros a month. If the store needs to talk to inventory or accounting systems, that is custom systems work — from €700, depending on the scope of the processes. You’ll see the exact, fixed price in the quote after our first conversation.
How we handle this
An online store isn’t one big choice but a series of small ones that affect each other. That’s why in our e-commerce development we start with a conversation about what you sell and who you sell it to, and only then choose the solution — from a small catalogue to a full store with payments and shipping. The payment and shipping connections, the product import and the training are on us.
If you’re considering an online store and it isn’t clear which end to start from — book a consultation. We’ll talk through your products, your buyers and your timeline, and tell you which solution is the right one in your situation.